


Die Another Day

by Merkwerkee



Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [41]
Category: Masters of the Metaverse (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, but he gets better don't worry, s6 e9: Dr Thunderfinger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: With his healing factor suppressed by snake venom, Bruno's avatar takes enough damage to kill the man. Fortunately - or un - Bruno can still make the body function.
Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643020





	Die Another Day

Bruno sat quietly as the plane made its steady way back to England.

That’s not to say the flight itself was quiet; Baron Bad von Charlottesville was currently pontificating to both his granddaughter Andi and her avatar Jane Blonde, who were taking it in turns to wind him up whenever he looked like he was flagging. That made enough noise to completely fill the otherwise deserted cabin, the lone attendant having decided that discretion was the better part of valor and gone to hide in the front with the pilot and co-pilot after the first hour of this.

Not that Bruno could blame them; the last mission had been…stressful. He covertly rubbed his chest and suppressed the urge to cough at the memory of his avatar’s chest caving in. General Cassius - or, more accurately, the 742 pilot who’d been using General Cassius - had shown no quarter. Bruno had felt his avatar’s ribs _crack_ under the first blow, _snap_ under the second, and puncture vital organs on the third. Three punches, in the span of maybe two breaths, on top of the still-seeping bullet holes from the Russian’s gun. Bruno had always thought his least favorite this about broken ribs was the stabbing pain that came with each breath, the way that each breath came shorter than the last like his lungs were trying to avoid the pieces of rib around them.

And then his avatar’s heart had stopped.

Richard “Dick” Ramsbottom had been dead for seven seconds.

Bruno Hamilton had been alone in his avatar for seven seconds.

Bruno Hamilton had, over the course of a long career, been shot, stabbed, sliced, pierced, punctured, tortured, blown up, shocked, dipped in acid, set on fire, and various other things that had been _exquisitely_ painful in the worst ways.

 _None_ of them were as bad or lasted as long as those seven seconds.

Bruno grimaced as he remembered pushing himself to the fore of his falling avatar. There’d been no resistance, not even the token amount he usually felt when he exerted himself; nor had there been any sign of the light of the metaverse, lending credence to what Robbins had told him about how natural deaths being the way for a pilot to jump out of an avatar. Instead, there had been a blank gulf where Ramsbottom had been, a depthless, gaping void between himself and the body he was in. Being alone in a piloted avatar was strange, and not in a good way. The body had been _meant_ for Ramsbottom, and while Bruno could _make_ it work by force of will, it wasn’t meant for him, wasn’t _designed_ for him.

That, and the massive amount of trauma Ramsbottom had received. Bruno had _felt_ the shattered pieces of rib grinding together and digging into the soft parts of the chest as he’d pushed himself away from the floor. He had _felt_ it when one of Ramsbottom’s lungs went, leaking air into the chest cavity. Digging deep into reserves he hadn’t known he possessed had allowed him to get a hold of General Cassius and break the man’s neck while using the body against the closest two enemies; it was in that moment he’d felt Ramsbottom’s heart begin beating again, sluggishly at first and then stronger as Crash’s magic took hold and the burn of snake venom faded.

Of course, healing completely shattered ribs had been unpleasant in itself; as soon as the last threat had been negated - by Baron Bad’s paranoia, of all things - Bruno had collapsed. Ramsbottom was back but nearly catatonic in the back of their shared mindspace, which meant he at least didn’t have to feel the _tearing_ pain of pieces of rib being pulled back into place. The moving pieces of bone had caused nearly as much damage on their way back as they had moving to where they’d gotten to, and Bruno had been unable to suppress the overwhelming urge to cough as blood filled his lungs.

Andi had not been pleased when her grandfather started coughing up blood, and Blonde had seemed equally alarmed about how much blood was coming out of Ramsbottom’s mouth. Bruno hadn’t been able to catch his breath to reassure them, the tears in his lungs leaking air into his chest cavity in a sensation he could _feel_. He’d had to grab the knife he’d gotten in the armory and pierce the pneumothorax before his lung collapsed completely, and Andi had nearly pulled the knife out of his hands when he stabbed himself with it. It was only when the blood had spurted with the _hiss_ of escaping air that she understood, and while Bruno could barely wheeze the words out he managed to get her pick the Russian’s bullets out for him for the next several minutes while his lung re-inflated completely and his ribs became gradually more homogeneous.

But their avatars had had a schedule - or Blonde did, anyway - and Andi had hauled Bruno to his feet long before his internal repairs were done. Making their way to the plane Blonde had waiting for them in a protected cove not too far away from the Baron’s castle had been an exercise in patience and Ramsbottom’s ribs were still more cracked than whole by the time they’d boarded.

But.

He’d lived.

Bruno rubbed his chest again, feeling the reassuringly steady beat of his heart. If Crash hadn’t managed to negate the poison in his blood and allowed his healing factor to address the more pressing issue of crushed ribs…He cut a glance over to where the other two were sitting. Crash was there with his avatar, Bruno could see that much, but the Baron seemed to be the one doing most of the talking. The current theme seemed to be how superior Bad’s 400k system was to many current retirement plans; Bruno wasn’t entirely certain how he’d gotten onto the topic, but a glance at Blonde’s mischievous face gave him a pretty good idea.

The Baron himself was an…interesting individual. Bruno flexed his left hand as the vague sense-memory of heavy metal and recalcitrant servos ghosted along his nerves. He wasn’t sure how or why it had happened, but finding himself in the body of Baron Bad and facing down a mob of angry henchmen had been an experience. The shock of it had pushed him to the back of the shared mindspace, and the complex whirling of the mind around him had been enough to leave him off-kilter and dizzy. The Baron’s mind had moved at a million miles a second, complex calculations for orbital mechanics and the possibility of putting together a lunar base had been superseded by more immediate calculations of angle and trajectory for best use of his machine-gun arm. Underneath all the science and math had been a constant stream of objective observations about the world around him that managed to completely miss interpersonal cues while spilling out of his mouth.

Baron Bad was smart, smarter than Bruno himself for all the Baron had the interpersonal skills of a hungry raccoon, and Bruno had to take a moment to wonder how Crash had dealt with the man’s head. There was so much, going in a thousand directions at any given moment. If thoughts could make actual noise, the inside of the Baron’s head was an unending cacophony that Bruno himself would be glad to never have to deal with again. There was no organizing such a mess, no compartmentalizing the thousand and one concurrent lines of thought; Ramsbottom, for all Bruno personally objected to the man’s hitting on his granddaughter in her avatar, was at least something familiar, and returning to the man’s head had been a relief.

Bruno shook said head as he took a deep breath and felt his ribs protest - though less than they had an hour ago. Ramsbottom would live, Blonde had the villain she’d set out to capture, and Baron Bad had perhaps some perspective on things. Him and his team had managed to thwart the 742 invasion before it could gain a foothold and, in the end, that would have to be enough.


End file.
